From the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, dramatic accounts of European and American explorers and settlers held captive by pirates, indigenous peoples, and other “uncivilized” groups were published and popularly consumed by Western readers. Often presented as autobiographies, these stories of conflict and hardship—usually concluding with religious redemption—captured the imaginations of generations of colonists. Sometimes of dubious historical credence, these captivity narratives serve more as a valuable witness to Westerners’ conception of their own culture and the construction of “the other” in the collective consciousness.

The Thomas Jefferson Collection includes Jefferson’s extended treatise describing the just society, Notes on the State of Virginia, his autobiography, and three classic biographical volumes examining the life and legacy of the United States’ third president, and first national mouthpiece.

Notes on the State of Virginia serves as Thomas Jefferson’s Republic. In it, he characterizes his vision of the just society, which he saw as exemplified in his home state of Virginia. This volume is an invaluable extended look into Jefferson’s thought on the fundamental liberal principles of separation of church and state, federalism, checks and balances, and individual liberty.